Re: [geolocation-sensor] Support geolocation (especially geofencing) in the "background" (#22)

> Having a page working in the background all the time is not suitable for some use cases

Yes, like I said, I'm fine with backgroundable access being restricted to Shared Workers or Service Workers to avoid having to have a *whole page* loaded, for energy-efficiency reasons.

> Geofencing is suggested as a safer alternative to implementing full background location tracking

How would you even implement a consent model for that? Geofencing gets consent *today* \(when the user could be distracted, or simply having lent their phone to a friend for a moment\), then disappears — completely? — into the background, to potentially surprise the user with a location-leak in the *future*.

And, from a technical perspective, having even a single geofencing trigger present would require either the browser itself to be regularly checking locations, or for the browser to delegate this to some [3rd party willing to accept the "burden" of being a middleman for infinite juicy user data](https://developers.google.com/location-context/geofencing).

The entire geofencing thing is such a nightmare from both privacy and technical perspectives that I think it should \(if not be thrown out completely from web apps\) be treated completely separately from simple "backgroundable" location access, which not only enables very many seriously compelling use-cases immediately\* but can be done with a **clear, simple, "no-surprises"** consent and security model.

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\*I don't need a pop-up reminding me I arrived at a concert; I'll simply click on my calendar event when I get there instead.

But I *do* need a maximally simple and lightweight bike-ride tracking app.

And even a truck-tracking app could still get 95% of the way to being perfect with a simple "backgroundable" location access privilege, with a single small wart \(just a tiny UX issue after a full device reboot\).

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Received on Thursday, 6 November 2025 02:48:01 UTC